Jump
Start: Domain Aftermarket Revs Up With a Trio of Six-Figure Sales
Totaling More Than $700,000

The domain aftermarket seemed to be
stuck in first gear for the first month and a half of the New Year,
but a trio of solid six-figure sales gave the sales engine a jump
start this past week. Three of the six biggest reported sales so far
in 2009 were unveiled over the past seven days. Sedo.com
led the high end onslaught by handling a $399,990 deal for Forums.com.
Appropriately enough, the seller was DNForum.com
owner Adam Dicker.

In other major deals #2 FreeQuotes.com
changed hands for $210,000 in a private transaction and the $100,000
sale of #3 Wife.com was closed after Moniker
auctioned off that name in their live auction at the Domainfest
Global conference.

By
Ron Jackson

Sedo led all venues by racking up eight
entries on our weekly all extension Top 20 leader board,
including #4 Primus.com at $33,000 and #5 Statoil.ru
(Russian country code) at €23,400 ($29,718). The
latter was one of three ccTLDs that crashed the usual .com
party on this list. #12 Historia.pl
("history" in Polish) drew $16,531 in a
private sale and #17 (tie) Mama.es (Spain's country
code) attracted $15,000 at Sedo. Historia.pl (the cctLD for Poland)
likely benefits from spillover traffic from an established website
at Historia.org.pl.

The only other non .com domain on the Big
Board was #15 Obama.net, a name that sold through the
affiliate forum at WickedFire.com
for $15,500.

We rarely see a double hyphenated domain on
the chart, but Top-10-Hawaii.com slipped into the #20 slot
after selling for $13,010 through GoDaddy
Auctions. The domain once hosted a developed site for
tourists so residual traffic likely accounted for the price paid,
rather than the unwieldy name itself (indeed similar names, like Top-10-Florida.com,
are not even registered at the time of this writing. Of course,
having mentioned it, someone will probably take that example now
even though it has no inherent value!)

Here is how all of the
leaders stacked up for the week ending Sunday, February 22:

Keep in mind that these are the highest
value sales that have been reported to us in the
past week. This column is meant to be an educational tool,
not a complete list documenting ALL high
value domain sales. Such a list is impossible to produce
because many sales are kept private at the insistence of
buyers, sellers or both. Our procedure for verifying the
accuracy of domain sales reports is available here.

Forthe many newcomers entering the domain
industry we also want to point out that the reasons why a domain name sells for a certain price can be varied and are not always clear to those who are unfamiliar with the domain market.
If you do not understand why specific domain names command the
prices they do, you are likely to make unwise domain registrations or purchases.
We highly recommend that you do some basic research beforeyou buyanything! As a starting point we have
built a sister site specifically for you at NameNewbie.com.

There were seven more five-figure sales just off the
chart, led by Sedo's $12,700 sale of Frey.fr (a
French country code domain). Sedo also sold AFQ.com for
$10,160 and, through their GreatDomains
premium auction site, Cheetahs.com, for $10,099.

Moniker also had a hand in three more sales at this
level; Reserved.com ($12,500) and Fajitas.com ($10,000)
- both sold at their Domainfest Global live auction, and
Smartco.com ($10,200) from their online platform. The AfternicDLS
also scored with RCSI.com at $10,000.

.Com Supporting Cast

NameJet.com
led the .com supporting cast with Rottin.com at $9,972.
At the same venue, StopSigns.com braked at $9,000, GasolinePrices.com
produced $7,987 and ClassBooks.com brought $7,600.
Wallmark.com chalked up $6,889, Headband.com
bagged $6,055 and Zealand.com located $5,900. Woodsheds.com
went for $5,800 while EtchedGlass.com and CatalyticConverter.com
kicked in $5,655 each. MusicChart.com drummed up
another $5,600.

NameJet had 33 more .com sales ranging from $2,000
to $5,500. Those are listed in the table below:

Additional
NameJet .Com Sales Between $2,000-$5,500

partsforsale.com

$5,500

onlinepuzzle.com

$3,201

sneakpeak.com

$5,400

graduationgift.com

$3,112

zootsuit.com

$5,255

godsplan.com

$3,099

ggk.com

$5,100

easystep.com

$2,855

musicstars.com

$4,988

cameracrew.com

$2,700

fhk.com

$4,900

easysigns.com

$2,600

storageroom.com

$4,855

milonga.com

$2,577

roofingshingles.com

$4,600

torpedos.com

$2,522

crusoe.com

$4,011

bloopy.com

$2,500

sureshot.com

$4,000

phonerings.com

$2,350

furnitureweb.com

$3,970

babyblocks.com

$2,322

silverring.com

$3,850

xuancai.com

$2,211

bengaltiger.com

$3,833

executivelimo.com

$2,150

masonjars.com

$3,633

teendrivers.com

$2,100

irishcream.com

$3,600

mingers.com

$2,050

weddingtoast.com

$3,550

wrongway.com

$2,050

vintagewheels.com

$3,355

Back at the AfternicDLS MLTD.com
tallied $9,800 and RippleEffect.com fetched $8,000,
a nice jump from the $2,938 that RippleEffect
previously sold for at SnapNames in December 2005. AutomobileInsuranceQuotes.com
contributed $6,750, Golosi.com grossed $5,188
and two others; Curiosa.com and ServerConsolidation.com
corralled $5,000 apiece.

ExteriorPaint.com peeled off $4,500,
AmpUp.com plugged in $4,288 and CompData.com
commanded $4,200. The AfternicDLS had 63 more .com sales ranging from $2,000 to $4,000. You
can check those out in the table below:

EOB.com led Sedo's supplemental list at
€6,900 ($8,763), a considerable discount from the $14,000
this same name sold for last September (also at Sedo). OFB.com
banked $7,550 and two others; FlyLink.com and Veristat.com
staked out $5,000 each. VQU.com clicked for $3,999,
Avanz.com dug up $3,937 and Ernaehrung-Diaet.com
dispensed $3,810.

Sedo had 21 more .com sales ranging from $2,000
to $3,800. Those are listed in the table below:

Additional
Sedo .Com Sales Between $2,000-$3,800

mylupus.com

$3,800

unibook.com

$2,540

wja.com

$3,766

phone-books.com

$2,500

aquaflare.com

$3,550

verrazano.com

$2,500

brazoria.com

$3,500

balkon.com

$2,395

easysem.com

$3,500

numberdomainnames.com

$2,250

zebramedia.com

$3,300

youcash.com

$2,050

atair.com

$3,200

99s.com

$2,000

doodlebox.com

$3,200

artecasa.com

$2,000

mdw.com

$3,175

global-gate.com

$2,000

primitiva.com

$2,858

ssva.com

$2,000

notremaison.com

$2,616

Sedo also sold 3D-Video.com for the AfternicDLS
for $2,488.

Moniker closed several sales from their Domainfest
Global live auction at the end of January. LawReview.com landed
$8,000, PatioTable.com polished off $5,500 and
two others; Devotion.com and SecondBase.com batted $5,000
apiece.

Moniker also sold Bings.com from their online
platform for $5,149 and PornGuide.com for $3,500
through their live auction at Internext.

Back at GoDaddy Auctions, AlphaSolar.com warmed
up to $5,560 and LivingScape.com scraped up $2,583.

Global Contenders
(.biz, .info, .mobi, .name, .net & .org)

Obama.net is commander in chief in the Global Contenders
category this week, taking the #1 position on our new Top 20 Chart.
.Net went on to sweep 11 positions including #2 (tie) with Bikes.net
at $7,000. Movie.info shared that spot, with both of
those domains selling through Moniker's live auction at the
Domainfest Global conference.

.Org claimed four chart positions, with #5
Rap.org leading the way for that extension with a $5,900
sale at Sedo. .Info occupies three spots, including #6 (tie)
with CirrusCasino.info at $5,715. The remaining two
openings went to #9 (tie) England.mobi at $5,500 and
#16 (tie) Bingos.name at $2,540.

Here's how all of the Global Contenders stacked up for the
week ending February 22:

There were three dozen more four-figure GC sales just off the
chart. The AfternicDLS had the highest of those with Paui.net
at $2,088. They also sold Sphera.net, WhitePlanet.net
and TheRevolution.org for $2,000 apiece. Cahoots.net
brought $1,888 while ENEA.org and AdConnect.net
notched $1,500 each.

Also at the AfternicDLS, FileTaxes.net returned
$1,288, DailyDeals.net discovered $1,181 and
two others; Executech.net and Postmark.org produced $1,100
each. LegalResources.net returned $1,088 while ArtsCafe.net
and CheapInsurance.org generated $1,000 apiece.

The country codes remain on a roll with a
quartet of five-figure sales leading our new Country Code Top 20 Chart.
We told you about all four of those names when we covered the
leaders across all extensions at the top of this report. The highest
ccTLD sale you haven't seen yet is #5 LastMinutes.co.uk, sold
at Sedo for $8,193. Sedo went on to sweep 18 of the 20 chart
entries.

America's .us extension had the most chart
entries with four, a quartet of gambling related domain names that
commanded $5,715 each to tie for the #9 position. Those were OnlinePokerGames.us,
Online-VideoPoker.us, Play-Blackjack.us and RouletteStrategy.us.

Here is how all of the
country code top sellers stacked
up for the week ending February 22:

There were 31 more four figure ccTLD sales
off the chart and Sedo accounted for 29 of those including MShare.de
($2,540), iTicket.se ($2,400) and a pair at $2,286
each; ProWeb.de and TrendTravel.de.

Sedo had 25 more country code sales ranging
from $1,000 to $2,032. Those are listed in the table
below.

Additional
Sedo ccTLD Sales Between $1,000-$2,032

dachfenster.eu

$2,032

keter.nl

$1,271

horoscopo2009.es

$2,032

mbd.de

$1,270

estrategiasdepoker.es

$1,905

mueslis.de

$1,270

firmen-bewertungen.de

$1,905

naturalizer.de

$1,270

juegosdeblackjack.es

$1,905

shopall.be

$1,270

kaetzchen.de

$1,905

tripmix.de

$1,270

multijugadores.es

$1,905

unternehmerinnenportal.de

$1,257

redtube.com.cn

$1,905

johannesburg.se

$1,143

contractmobilephones.co.uk

$1,846

venezia.me

$1,143

ukbaby.co.uk

$1,491

videoportal.tv

$1,143

umzugsservice.ch

$1,397

petit-electromenager.fr

$1,016

contacting.me

$1,334

adtrack.de

$1,015

oohlala.co.uk

$1,278

Elsewhere, NetFleet.com.au
sold PrivateSales.com.au for 1,900AUD ($1,228) and
NameJet sold Filmes.tv for $1,100.

Now that you're up to date on what happened over the
past week, check out how the leaders stand year to date in all
categories by visiting our Year
To Date Charts page.

*****

As always, we welcome all verifiable sales reports from companies,
private sellers or individuals with knowledge of an important sale
made through any channel. To contribute information and help make
this column better, just drop a note to editor@dnjournal.com.

We truly appreciate the industry leading
companies who share their sales information
with us to help everyone in the business get a handle on current
domain values. Richard
Meyer of Domain Sales Center also provides invaluable help
in collecting data for these sales
reports each week.

Every Tuesday we publish the highest reported domain name
sales for the previous week. On Monday our contributors send us
their sales data for the previous 7 days. We then compile that
information and write this report for Tuesday night publication to give
you the freshest sales report in the industry.

Editor's Note: If you wish to review previous Domain
Sales columns, they are available in our Archive.